Halcyone attracted her immensely, her quite remarkable personal distinction was full of charm, and, now in fresh and pretty modern clothes, to Cora’s eyes she looked almost beautiful; but why so very pale and quiet, she wondered; and then, with a flash, she remembered the news she too had read in the paper that morning.  Perhaps Halcyone minded very much.  She decided rapidly what to do.  If she did not mention it at all, she reasoned, this finely strung girl would know that she guessed it would be painful to her—­and that might hurt her pride.  It was kinder to plunge in and get it over.

“Isn’t it wonderful about Mr. Derringham and Cecilia Cricklander?” she said, pretending to be busy untangling her parasol tassel.  “She always intended to marry him—­and she is so rich I expect he felt that would be a good thing.  Freynie says he is very much harder up then anyone knows.”

Her kind, common sense told her that a man’s doing even a low thing for expediency would hurt a woman who loved him, less than that the motive for his action should have been one of inclination.

Halcyone came up to the scratch, although a fierce pain tightened her heart afresh.

“Yes,” she said, “I suppose no one was surprised to read of the engagement in the papers to-day.  I can imagine that a man requires a great deal of money to support the position in the government which Mr. Derringham has, and no doubt Mrs. Cricklander is glad to give it to him—­he is so clever and great.”  And not a muscle of her face quivered as she spoke.

“If it does hurt—­my goodness! she is game!” Cora thought, and aloud she went on, “Cecilia isn’t a bad sort—­a shocking snob, as all of us are who are not the real thing and want to be—­like your own common pushers over here.  We used to laugh at her awfully when she first came from Pittsburgh and tried to cut in before she married my cousin.  Poor old Vin!  He was crazy about her.”  Then she went on reflectively, as Halcyone did not answer.  “We often think you English people are so odd—­the way you can’t distinguish between us!  You receive, with open arms, the most impossible people if they are rich, that we at home would not touch with a barge pole, and you say:  ‘Oh, they are just American,’ as if we were all the same!  And then we are so awfully clever as a nation that in a year or two these dreadful vulgarians, as we would call them in New York, have picked up all your outside polish, and pass as our best!  It makes lots of the really nice old gentle-folk at home perfectly mad—­but I can’t help admiring the spirit.  That is why I have stuck to Cis, though the rest of the family have given her the cold shoulder.  It is such magnificent audacity—­don’t you think so?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Halcyone.  “All people have a right to obtain what they aspire to if they fit themselves for it.”